April 22, 2025
Munich to Strasbourg
By trains and bike
Thanks for all the comments. I had never figured out how to reply to comments, so I didn’t, but I tasked my tech support person (AKA husband) to figure it out, and he did, so hopefully I can reply more often.
In that vein (reading comments) I have an update from the “breakfast description attribution wars.” After giving credit to Scott Anderson for the term “ten jammer breakfast” another reader attributed it to Keith Classen, and then another reader claims the term was actually coined by the Grampies! Who knows? It is used so universally now by cycleblazers its original story is lost in the haze of history.
Today we got started on our journey but with only a little riding.
The theme of train travel for cyclists is beating a dead horse; readers know train travel is always a challenge for us. Today was no different. (Fyi, if you have no interest in the details of train travel feel free to skip over the following paragraphs. No offense will be taken).
Back in December I had booked a train from Munich to Mannheim and Mannheim to Offenberg and both routes included bike reservations on Deutsche Bahn. The intention was to get off in Offenburg and ride the rest of the way to Strasbourg that afternoon (about 25 k). (As an aside, for some reason the train connections between Munich to Strasbourg really stink). At best Jill and Dave can tolerate the stress and strains of only ONE transfer and I try very hard to avoid even that. Two weeks ago Deutsche Bahn sent a notice to us, advising that the connection I had booked would no longer work and that I had to go online and figure something else out. Thanks Deutsche Bahn.
It advised that we could still travel that day on our current ticket to our final destination but we no longer had valid seat reservations on any other train and mentioned nothing about whether any other train would take bikes. I spent a mildly frantic morning a few weeks ago trying to figure out alternatives. We were on a schedule because the following day we were booked on the one and only long term train from Strasbourg to Lyon. And that train can accommodate only two bikes. The alternative I ultimately cooked up was taking our original train from Munich but getting off in Stuttgart instead of traveling all the way to Mannheim, the presumption being that we would still have bike and seat reservations on the originally booked train. After getting off in Stuttgart we theoretically could get on a local train to Karlsruhe (which take bikes on a first come-first served basis) and then in Karlsruhe we would take ANOTHER train to Offenberg, again on a local train which has bike spaces but accepts no reservations. Deutsche Bahn also forecasted that both local trains were “low demand” so should not be too busy. (Hah!)
The day started with us having to ride from our hotel in Munich to the train station at 8:15 am. We failed to allow enough time for the inevitable dithering that occurs - especially early in the trip - while gathering our gear together, aggravated by Dave sleeping in, so we were tearing about the room putting everything together. The ride to Munich Hautbahnhof was chilly and full of rush hour traffic, both auto and bikes. It was the Tuesday after Easter and everyone was going back to work (Easter Monday apparently being a holiday). The Munich train station is under renovation so the entrance was different from last year and we spent precious minutes trying to figure out how to get into the station. We arrived at our track, hoping to have extra time to board, and the bad news was that the train had not arrived. It is a lot easier if the train is at the track early so you can take your time finding your wagon (German word) and your seat. I misread the annunciator and thought our wagon was at one end (we were booked in Wagon 1) but 1 on the annunciator actually means 1st class, NOT Wagon 1) so when the train arrived we had to make a mad dash to the far end of the train. The 6 bike slots were all booked but a nice rider helped Dave slot our bikes into their reserved slots and all was good with the world for the next couple of hours. The train was full.
At Stuttgart when we disembarked we saw a train scheduled to leave for Karlsruhe in 20 minutes so we quickly moved to the indicated platform. The train was late arriving and the crowd swelled significantly as we anxiously waited along with a number of bikes and baby carriages. It was a pretty good shit show boarding but we elbowed our way on. There wound up being 5 bikes, a baby carriage and a scooter stashed in the bike bay designed for 2 bikes; people worked together to make it work. We relied on the kindness of strangers to determine when to get off since there was no annunciator on the train and we of course miss all the verbal announcements, since they are in German.
In Karlsruhe the transfer was even more chaotic. We had to switch platforms, and Dave reported after reconnaissance that the lift was out of order (figures). Fortunately a young janitor kindly advised us that a tunnel (used for maintenance) was located at the far opposite end of the platforms. It was dark and creepy, but it was a godsend and we safely arrived at track 6 a few minutes before the train was due in.
The train wound up being late and just as it was arriving the announcement came that it was switching to Track 4. We of course didn't understand any of that but picked up on it when the hoards of train riders on platform 6 suddenly were racing for the stairs. Everybody was signaling we would need to unload and take the stairs (down and up) to change tracks but we knew we could take the tunnel and raced down to the other end of the station. By the time we reached the train it was in the midst of boarding and the bike bays were filled up with both bikes but also people that had pulled the seats down to sit thus preventing the space from being used for bikes. It was a free for all but we and others just piled in; the train was packed and we had to stand for most of the trip to Offenberg. We talked to a very nice cyclist; she was getting off in Offenberg as well so she supervised the unloading of all our bikes which was great because it took some rearrangement to reach them in all the disorder.
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So, train travel works; it’s just not pretty.
We climbed on our cycles for the ride to Strasbourg. The ride was pleasant and bucolic at first but then, as we approached the Rhine, it became very commercial, industrial and busy, but still fun because there is a cycleway the whole way. Riding into Strasbourg was pretty chaotic; there were a ton of students out and about and a crowded scene through much of the city and it became apparent that lights and traffic indicators were more mere suggestions to most of the pedestrians, rather than being mandatory. It was a fun ride and we arrived at our Mercure Hotel right next to the Strasbourg train station.
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Last year when we did a similar trip we stayed at the Hotel Victoria - which had a basic but serviceable room (and a tub) but also hosted rabbits in the lobby (a bit strange), so this year I went with the Mercure. It served us just fine (easy bike parking in a little interior courtyard where the smokers go), but could do with a refurbishment. The orange carpeting in the room was a shock and the whole place hadn't been updated for awhile. Yet the tub was great and the water hot and we got a free drink compliments of Mercure so Dave could have his beer while we cleaned up.
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We went to dinner that night at an Alsatian restaurant down the street which we enjoyed a lot (snails, warm goat cheese salad and some type of stew with spaetzle; all good).
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2 days ago
One day of train travel down, one more to go tomorrow.
Today's ride: 30 km (19 miles)
Total: 51 km (32 miles)
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